


They Never Stop Coming

by BlackhurstManor



Series: Blackhursts in Paragon City [1]
Category: City of Heroes
Genre: Action/Adventure, City of Heroes - Freeform, City of Villains - Freeform, F/M, Fingerfucking, Halloween, Implied/Referenced Incest, Lost in Time, Pegging, Saucy Sisters, Sexy Times, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slow Burn, Smut, Steampunk, Superheroes, Victorian Shenanigans, ZOMBIES!!!, size queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-04
Updated: 2020-06-04
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:48:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24542611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackhurstManor/pseuds/BlackhurstManor
Summary: Veronica and Euphemia Blackhurst, time-tossed sisters and supernatural hunters from the Victorian Age, find themselves in the modern-day City of Heroes just in time to save it from a Halloween invasion of zombies. When things get too dire even for their pistols, swords, and magic, one of the city's newest heroes -- Iron Gladius, a human wrecking ball -- jumps in to save the day.It's only fitting they have a drink afterward.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Male Character
Series: Blackhursts in Paragon City [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1773877
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

They just kept coming.

Veronica and Euphemia Blackhurst had dealt with the living dead twice before. In the catacombs beneath Paris they’d felled dozens of skeletons animated by black magic. Once more in the American Civil War, they had fought and slain monstrous amalgams of fallen soldiers in the fields of Gettysburg, dodging fleshy limbs and cannon fire alike. Both times the fiends were relentless, but Blackhurst will and prowess won the day.

But hellish as those two scenarios were, they were nothing compared to now. October in Paragon City was a haunted thing, and amidst a veritable invasion of witches, ghosts, vampires, werewolves and more from… somewhere… zombies were crawling out of the earth seemingly at random, and seemingly everywhere.

For instance: here, on All Hallow’s Eve, at an intersection in Steel Canyon that had turned into a pile-up of flaming cars, fleeing civilians and the living dead. Previous invasions had been sporadic. But here, under the waxing crescent moon and baleful red sky of Halloween, the onslaught simply would not abate.

“Behind you!” Veronica cried, sliding over the hood of a stalled police car to level her twin Navy Colts at the shambling rotter rearing up behind Effie. Effie ducked and sprung away, a whirlwind of flashing rapiers. Veronica squeezed the triggers and ignited a crackling line of violet magical energy that burst from both barrels and cleaved the zombie’s head clear off at the neck.

Effie landed in a crouch, nimble as a ballerina, and took the fraction of a second to wink at her sister before spinning into a horde of zombies lurching toward her with arms outstretched.

 _My god, she is brave_ , Veronica thought with a flush of pride and affection, before she hopped her way up a smoking city bus to assess the situation.

The situation was dire. Several cars were belching black smoke or burning outright. Asphalt had been torn and scattered in great chunks where the zombies climbed their way to the surface and, worse, the piles of scattered limbs and rotten viscera presented mounting obstacles to the sisters’ agility without slowing the hungry dead.

“I don’t care for this,” Veronica shouted, hip-firing bursts of magic at the clutch of zombies crawling up the bus to greet her.

“Nor I!” Effie said, thirty feet away now. _Too far by half_ , Veronica thought. “Sentient opponents have the good sense to dodge or parry, but there’s no _art_ to these things!”

There was an unfamiliar note of resignation entering both their voices. Though this was the so-called “city of heroes,” none had appeared to help the Blackhursts. Perhaps they were on their way.

 _Or perhaps_ , Veronica thought, kicking a zombie off the side of the bus before whirling out of reach of another’s ragged fingernails, _no help is coming because this occult pandemic has truly gone global._

“Ronnie!” Effie cried, and Veronica darted down the length of the bus toward the sound of her sister’s voice.

There she was, yards away, one rapier trapped firmly in the rib cage of a clawing zombie while others closed around her. They shared a moment of brief, panicked eye contact, until a shadow cast over Effie and grew larger –

“ _LOOK OUT BELOW!_ ” a voice boomed above them.

Veronica did not think. With a flare of violet magic she took flight, darting past Effie and grabbing the laces running up the back of her corset to yank her skyward, zombie stowaway and all.

Just in time, it turned out.

A massive man-shaped cannonball smashed into the horde of zombies clustered where Effie had just been. The fractured asphalt shattered from the impact, kicking up great hunks of road and sending a dozen zombies hurtling away.

Effie, dangling from Veronica’s grip, put her heel to the zombie’s chest beside her rapier and pushed, dropping the grasping rotter 20 feet to split open on the concrete like an overripe melon. The cannonball clarified into the shape of a large man in shining steel armor and gauntlets, who charged into the gathering hordes of zombies. With every swing of his fists, zombies broke apart like dried kindling. The air around him quaked with the force of it.

“Drop me,” Effie said, a note of feral excitement in her voice. Veronica knew better than to deny her when she sounded like that.

Veronica dipped and set them both gently down outside the man’s swinging range. She drew her revolvers and swept a gaze over the battlefield with a rising exhilaration in her heart.

 _My god, we might have it_ , she thought. The hero who’d joined them waded through the zombies, pummeling them with gauntleted fists near as big as her head. Effie took his lead, severing heads and hands and tendons from the undead until they tumbled to the ground as quivering piles of limbs. Veronica spun and twirled and fired shot after shot until the air around them fairly sizzled with arcane energy.

It was, for a time, just a haze: bullets and flashing steel and pummeling fists forming a rock upon which a tide of zombies broke and scattered. Veronica could not say how much time had passed before the blood-red sky faded to the deep blue of true night.

The three heroes caught their breath, backs to each other in a loose triangle. Around them cars burned; in the distance, storm sirens wound down while emergency vehicle sirens blared to life.

“I hoped,” the man said quietly, his voice a low bass that rumbled in their ear drums, “that I was not too late.”

“Hardly, darling,” Veronica said, tamping down the tremor of adrenaline in her voice. Effie wiped her blades on a fallen zombie’s shirt, and both women turned to assess their hero. Just like that, he found himself surrounded.

He was, to Veronica’s growing delight, _absurdly_ large. At least a foot taller than her and nearly twice as wide, the dark-skinned man was bedecked in a shining steel breastplate, greaves, Roman helmet – a _galea_ , chimed the old governess’s voice in her head – and steel bolted gauntlets over royal blue pants, sleeveless form-fitting shirt and black leather boots. Though the mask of his _galea_ hid much of his face, she found the guileless, searching look in his deep brown eyes charming.

“I’d say you found the perfect moment to make your grand entrance,” she said with eyes on his, a game little grin on her lips.

“Quite, and you have our thanks,” Effie said behind him, and he turned his head to look at her as Effie sheathed her blades.

“Lady Veronica Blackhurst,” Veronica said, offering one gloved hand and causing him to turn his head once more. She was rather enjoying making his head spin.

Gingerly he wrapped her hand in his own massive fist and shook, at what she guessed must be a bare fraction of his true strength.

“Lady Euphemia Blackhurst,” Effie offered, and he turned to shake hers as well with his free hand – for Veronica had not eased her grip on the other.

 _Oh yes, this is fun_ , Veronica thought, the barest hint of something devilish quirking at the corner of her lips. He shook both their hands, head turning left and right to take them both in.

“Iron Gladius,” he said, in that soft rumble more felt than heard. Their handshake broke at the approach of several emergency vehicles, red and blue lights glancing off the shiny steel of Iron Gladius’s armor.

Veronica met eyes with Effie, waiting to do the same, and then made a show of examining herself before smiling up at their new addition.

“Well,” she said, in a that’s-that tone that would brook no argument. “We’re a mess, and you’re a mess, and the situation is handled. What say we clean up and treat ourselves to a brandy?”

“Ah – “ He began, looking off toward the horizon and – no doubt – thinking of any number of hypothetical people who might need saving.

“Brilliant idea, Veronica. After us, dear,” Effie said, brushing past him for a second more of searing eye contact with her sister. “The tram is this way.”

Unsure what else to do, Iron Gladius followed the sisters Blackhurst to the tram.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Blackhursts and Iron Gladius retire to the sisters' hideaway to unwind and get to know each other. Where did the sisters come from? Why did Iron Gladius suit up? Will they banter?? Reader, the answers to these questions and more await you.

The tram took them to Founders Falls, and a narrow little brownstone the sisters called their own. Its previous owner, a wealthy but dotty old woman pushing 98, had died and left it furnished with nearly a century of odds and ends that no one was left to claim. To the outside world it was filled to the brim with flea market fodder; to the time-tossed Blackhursts, it was just old-fashioned enough to feel a little bit like home.

The Blackhursts had their rooms in Cromwell Manor, of course, but that place never felt truly private – even before you counted the ghosts. The sisters had experienced some trouble converting their stash of gold, relics and outdated British pounds into modern currency, but the landlord had been thankful anyone at all wanted the place as-is.

And so they had found their hideaway.

Effie led the trio into the foyer, where wall sconces offered warm light splashed against patterned wallpaper. Veronica traipsed in after, draping her gun belt and gloves on the coat rack with practiced disregard.

Iron Gladius –  _ Victor _ , it turned out, a name Veronica found amusing for reasons clear only to her – filed in last, turning sideways and ducking to get himself through the door. He stood there, not certain what to do, while Veronica and Effie exchanged a glance.

“Your effects, sir,” Veronica said with a pleasant smile. “We insist on your comfort.”

The two sisters waited in watchful silence as Victor hung his helmet on the coat rack, revealing tightly cropped black hair and a trim beard. He was acutely aware of their eyes on him as he set his breastplate aside and released the pressurized cuffs of his steel bolted gauntlets, then set those awkwardly on the floor, fingers up.

Effie smiled broadly. “This way to the study, please.”

She led them past the narrow stairway on the left (Victor shifting again to pass without brushing his shoulders against the sepia-toned family portraits hanging on the opposite wall) and turned into the study.

It was a handsome room of overflowing bookshelves and overstuffed burgundy leather chairs flanking a claw-footed chesterfield of the same design. Hooded lamps lit the walls in a soft amber glow, and many small tables were piled with books save for the buffet against the far wall holding the room’s points of pride: an old Victrola and a tray with carafes of dark liquor. A radiator hummed beneath the curtained window, warming the space. Victor thought he’d never seen a cozier room in his life.

Effie went to the buffet to pour drinks as Veronica draped herself in a corner of the chesterfield. She smiled charmingly at Victor and patted the seat beside her – clearly, to all of them, the only seating in the room big enough to accommodate him. He set himself gingerly down and folded his hands in his lap, doing his best to ignore the soft groan the seat made beneath his weight.

Veronica’s smile widened. They had spoken little since leaving Steel Canyon and now, settled in, she pounced.

“Gladius –  _ Victor, _ ” she corrected, with a toothy grin, “We’re new in town and may ask a lot of elementary questions, so a thousand pardons in advance. Do you often save the day in such… dramatic fashion?”

“I – thank you,” Victor said as Effie passed the couch, handing him and her sister a snifter of brandy each before settling into the chair beside him with her own.

“Yes, do tell,” Effie said. “And do you often act alone?”

“Yes,” he said, taking a sip to find his footing – he was no longer sure who or what he was answering. “I’ve been official for about six months, but I was testing my armor in the streets before that.” He smiled slightly, glancing between them. “Don’t tell the cops.”

“We wouldn’t  _ dream _ of it, dear,” Veronica said, aerating her glass in slow circles as she sized him up. Effie rested her chin on her hand and watched her sister watching him. “You made the armor yourself?”

“I did. I’ve always been good with my hands. Always been big, too,” he added with a short, gruff laugh. “I’ve lived in Paragon all my life, but I was too young to do anything the last time villains were out in the streets in these numbers. When they came back, I told myself: Victor, you have gifts. And you don’t have these hands to just sit on ‘em when you could be doing something. I knew I had to step up and join the fight. I had to help.”

Veronica tilted her glass to sip, head cocked to the side so as not to break eye contact. Victor stared back, snifter cupped in his palm, tracing its rim with a calloused thumb.

“The very definition of a hero,” Veronica said, and despite her usual quiet amusement she seemed to mean it.

“It is, though you seem to gloss over the most important part,” Effie said. “Your courage. The rest is meaningless without courage.”

Victor turned to regard them both, spreading his legs and getting comfortable. “Oh, I was plenty afraid when I jumped in tonight—”

“Courage isn’t the absence of fear,” Veronica cut in, beginning a refrain Effie knew well. Every Blackhurst did. “It’s understanding what’s more important than fear and acting on it.”

“Hm,” Victor said, staring into his glass for a moment before looking between them. “What about the two of you? You’re plenty unusual, even for this town.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Effie said, suppressing a laugh. “I’m Lady Euphemia Blackhurst, though ‘Dame’ is the formal. We are the last of a line of famed explorers, naturalists, and – how else to say it? – monster hunters.”

“And we are, as you may have guessed,” Veronica continued, “not of this time. Nearly 150 years have passed since we ‘vanished,’ only to find ourselves here, in this year, at this moment of crisis. Much like you, I suppose.”

“That’s… a lot,” Victor said, slouching one thickly muscled arm over the back of the chesterfield. He traced the carved woodwork, thick fingers curling inches from Veronica’s bare shoulder. “I mean for the two of you. To lose all that time, and all the people you knew and loved. And so much has changed…”

“Darling, you have no idea,” Veronica said dryly.

“How are you handling it?”

“Honestly?” Effie said, sharing a look with Veronica.

“We  _ love _ it,” Veronica finished.

“We have work to do here, and there’s loads of that of course,” Effie said. “Stranger and wilder than anything we saw in our own time, and that was already quite a lot. Monsters and villainy abound, in endless forms we may never fully categorize.”

“And the work is – well, if I may speak plainly?” Veronica said. “ _ Oodles _ of fun.”

Victor chuckled softly, a low rumble as rich as caramel. “Yeah, that’s one way to put it.”

Veronica swatted him on the shoulder with a taunting grin. “Oh, yes, you’re very brave, very righteous, very  _ heroic, _ but I very much doubt you’d continue in the face of all that danger if you weren’t enjoying yourself.”

“Mm,” he said noncommittally, scanning the curve of Veronica’s neck with a glimmer of admission in his eyes. She laughed triumphantly.

“Just so! But I admit,” Veronica said, “as fruitful and satisfying as the eradication of monsters in the modern era has been, the true thrill has been all the rest of it.”

“The rest of it?”

“Oh yes,” Veronica said, taking a moment to drink her brandy dry. Effie rose and collected their glasses on the way back to the buffet as her sister continued.

“The food, the technology, the architecture, and my god, the  _ music. _ ”

Effie, ahead of the curve, dropped the needle on the Victrola. Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” drifted quietly into the room, a faint broadcast from another time.

“So terrifically modern, isn’t it?” Veronica said. Wisely, Victor did not respond. “But of course all of that pales next to the  _ people.  _ What is all of that culture but a byproduct of  _ them? _ The London we knew was fantastically cosmopolitan, but Paragon City is beyond even our wildest dreams.”

“Mm,” Effie said, returning with gifts of fresh brandy. Her voice took on the purr it always did when drink warmed her bones. “Fascinating people, and not just the heroes and villains. The people just walking down the street are so… endlessly inventive.”

“And frequently delicious,” Veronica murmured into her drink, with a devilish twist to her lips. The heat of Victor’s gaze threatened to bead her skin with sweat. Or perhaps it was just the brandy and the radiator.

“Behave,” Effie said with a hand over her mouth, shoulders shaking with silent laughter. 

“No need on my account,” he said, sharing a lingering smile with Effie. “We mix it up with all kinds of people at the peak of their game, and when the adrenaline gets going…” He shrugged. “I get it.”

“Oh, I’m certain you do!” Veronica said, shifting further into his orbit. “You’re a native, after all, and let’s be honest: seemingly at ‘the peak of your game,’ as you say. So tell us, if you would, what you love most about the age."

“Oh, hell, I’m not any kind of guide – “

“Nonsense!” Veronica said, swatting his chest and glancing at Effie. She thought he chanced a look at the provocations of her corset, and her grin only widened. “You’d be a  _ lovely _ guide. Effie here has always been self-sufficient, isn’t that right, darling?”

Effie, lounging in her chair and watching Victor and Veronica almost touch, offered only “It is.”

“Quite right,” Veronica said, husky and defiant, “whereas I positively yearn for a confident hand to show me what I need to see and experience.”

“Yeah?” Victor asked, one note quieter, staring at Veronica with patient curiosity. He touched her between her shoulder blades so faintly she half-thought she was imagining it.

“I mean what I say,” Veronica responded half to herself, tilting her head back to drain the last of her brandy. Chin in hand, Effie watched in quiet amusement. She could not blame him for staring. Veronica’s _décolletage_ was perhaps the finest weapon in her repertoire.

“Did you know,” Effie said, and found herself the subject of his most improper look. The warmth blooming in her hastened. “Veronica is quite the artist? I try to preserve what specimens I can, but she creates brilliant portraits of the people and items and other, more obscure things we run across in our adventures.”

“Oh?” he said as Veronica set her snifter aside and snaked Victor’s out from his grasp. She gathered her legs up behind her and leaned forward on her hand, nearly in the crook of his arm.

“Oh, yes,” Veronica said, then drank. “But it’s not as grand as all that --”

“Humility is as ill-fitting on you as ever, dear,” Effie said, sharing an indulgent grin with Victor. “Don’t try it on now. You are, in fact, quite good, and our guest may have useful commentary on what you’ve documented – insider’s knowledge, and crucial context we may be missing.”

“Hm,” Veronica said, studying Victor’s face curiously, quite close now. “What say you, Victor?”

“Mm?” He asked without blinking or shying away, so quiet Effie barely heard.

“Shall I show you my art?”

In answer, he plucked his wayward glass from Veronica’s hand and set it aside. “Think I’d like a good look,” he said, standing and offering his hand to her.

She slipped her hand into his –  _ so very powerful,  _ she thought, cheeks flushing – and stood primly. Victor offered his other hand to Effie, whose touch was lighter and fleeting.

“I fear tonight’s adventures have done me in,” Effie said, quietly pleased at the note of disappointment she detected in Victor, “so I shall retire, but please enjoy your evening.”

Effie leaned in to brush a kiss on Veronica’s cheek before she withdrew, squeezed Victor’s forearm, and excused herself from the room. Veronica gazed up at Victor with a small, conspiratorial grin. She had not released his hand.

“I keep my art upstairs. Shall we?”

“We shall,” he said. Hand in hand, Veronica led him upstairs.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica Blackhurst shows Victor her art, and he shows her his. It goes smashingly. Guess they don't call them "bodice rippers" for nothing.

Veronica’s room was a simple and mostly tidy time capsule from the first half of the last century. It was a cozy space with lush white carpet and gold-and-red patterned wallpaper, lit by dim hooded lanterns. A standing dresser and vanity flanked the room’s bay window on the far wall, squeezed in beside the four-poster bed that dominated its center. Framed mirrors helped the room feel bigger, but as Veronica walked to the vanity her skirts rustled both the bed and the wall.

The vanity seemed to be the center of the room’s activity. A stack of three sketchbooks and a cup of pens and pencils took the place of makeup there; another leatherbound sketchbook lay in the bay window, bathed in dim moonlight. The bed was covered in an immaculate overstuffed crimson spread, and if it looked so crisp to Victor that it seemed like it had never been slept in, that was because it hadn’t been.

Veronica began arranging and opening sketchbooks left to right on the vanity. “Pardon the mess, of course. Company was quite unexpected.”

“Don’t mind it at all,” he said, stepping up beside her -- nearly over her -- to peer down at the books. She felt the heat of him tingling through her bodice and skirts and undergarments, but he did not touch her.

“This book -- I admit, the least interesting -- is where I document the unusual flora we see,” she said of the book on the left, flipping past a few pages of plants to stop on an ambulatory flytrap drawn next to a roughed-out human silhouette for scale. They were nearly the same height.

He tapped his fingertip on the plant, a half-inch from her resting hand. His arm brushed hers. “Seen something like this, some two-bit villain tried robbing the federal bank in Kings Row with one of these,” he said in an amused whisper that rumbled in his chest. Something about the room encouraged quiet.

Veronica wet her lips with a simple “mm.” Her chest rose and fell under the weight of his lingering gaze.

“This,” she said, leafing through the middle book, “is the fauna. It -- “ 

Victor breathed against her hair and rested one hand lightly at the small of her back. Goosebumps rose up the back of her neck. She wet her lips and continued. God, he was so very  _ close -- _

“Yes?” He asked softly.

“It ranges far and wide, big and small, merely strange to the truly supernatural.” She stopped at her point of pride, a rendering of Devouring Earth specimens scaling from the smallest quartz figure to the massive Devoured.

“This is… very good, Veronica,” Victor said quietly, breathing just above her ear.

“You’re very kind,” she said, voice faltering. “And, ah, at last, the various  _ human _ specimens Effie and I have had the pleasure of tangling with.”

She flipped open the sketchbook on the right, paging past detailed sketches of Hellion thugs, Tsoo sorcerers, Warrior toughs and colorful supervillains.

“They’re all…” he began.

“Knocked unconscious, yes,” she said with a little laugh. “Would you believe, they’re not keen on standing still for portraiture when my sister and I come barreling in with guns blazing and swords flashing?”

“Suppose not,” Victor said. His hand rested heavier at the small of her back, and she felt him shift almost imperceptibly forward. His faint musk filled her nostrils and she felt momentarily dizzy.

“What,” he said, turning his head a little, “is in that book?”

She followed his voice to the leatherbound sketchbook in the bay window, and said nothing.

“Veronica?”

“That is…” She began, then willed the thundering in her ears to quiet before she squeezed past him to walk to the bay window. “A personal collection.”

She opened the book to its first page, and waited. Victor gave the three open sketchbooks one last look before he stood not  _ beside _ her but  _ behind _ her. He set both hands in the bay window on either side of her, trapping her there.

Then he saw the book and inhaled slightly, and a grin that would make the Devil blush crossed Veronica’s lips.

She leafed through the book without comment. The first page was a man, reclined nude upon a four-poster bed, his half-hard length draped up across his pelvis. The next was another man, seated in a bay window, similarly undressed and in a state of semi-arousal, face obscured by shadow.

She turned the page. Victor licked his lips.

This subject was a woman laid upon that same bed, face down, thighs parted and hips lifted, her arousal presented to the artist between spread fingers. If Victor recognized the ringlets of the subject’s hair, he made no indication.

Subsequent pages were detail work: a well-defined male torso, the gentle collarbones of a woman, a feminine mouth with tongue outstretched to tease a cleft. 

“These are…” He began, taking her hips gently in hand.

“Conquests,” she said, plainly and without shame. The modern age was one of defiance, of pride in one’s identity, and it spoke to Veronica’s soul. “People who enraptured me one way or another, whom I simply had to capture and preserve.”

Victor tightened his grip on her waist, fingers spread to feel the contours of Veronica’s bodice. He took one half-step forward, pinning Veronica’s hips to the frame of the window.

She  _ felt _ him.

“Here,” he said, tapping a blank page. She could not move, could only brace her hands flat against the spread leather-bound book.

“Here?” She could not keep the tremor from her voice.

“Draw me here.”

“If you desire it,” she said, then tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth. She arched her back gently, pressing to him. “You are… certainly a  _ worthy _ specimen.”

_ Oh my God, _ she thought, bubbling joy threatening to burst out of her,  _ he  _ cannot _ be  _ that  _ bi _ \-- 

“I desire,” he breathed against her neck, and Veronica’s runaway thoughts blanked as he kissed her throat. She shivered and reached back to grip the back of his neck, the trigger for him to seize on her all at once.

Hips pinning hers in place, mouth on her throat, he slid his hands up her sides to cup her breasts in his palms. He squeezed them with a groan of pent-up desire flooding free. 

_ They always go right for them, _ she thought, grinning wolfishly as her head fall back against his chest.

“That’s it, darling,” she whispered, squeezing his neck and curling her fingers over his, pressing his rough hand into her blouse to cup her bare, heavy breast. He growled softly against her neck and urged his hips forward. “Do what you’ve thought about doing since you first laid eyes on me…”

He did. Veronica braced her hands in the window’s frame and let him ravish her, lost in the delirium of his hungry lips and roving hands. He rolled one pink nipple between calloused fingertips as he delved a hand between her thighs, feeling her heat even through her petticoat.

She tried to squirm, to move, to do  _ something,  _ but he was too much and too big -- seemingly all around her at once, pinning her suspended between himself and the window frame, leaned forward on the toes of her boots to offer as much of herself to him as she could. She was, for the moment, the plaything of this strong and gentle man. And he seemed to be running out of gentleness.

Victor walked his fingers on Veronica’s inner thigh, bunching the folds of her skirt and baring her stockings inch by inch. Veronica could only grip the back of his neck harder, pressing her upturned ass against the magnificent hot length of him throbbing just on the other side of their clothes.

Beneath her skirt were dark crimson silk stockings held by crisp white garters; higher still the tantalizing milky white skin of bare thighs. Veronica made few concessions to the modern age’s sense of fashion, but she was all too happy to discard bloomers in favor of snugger, softer things.

When his great right hand split her thighs apart to cup her heat and tease her, she turned her head sharply and cried out -- distantly aware of Effie, likely mere feet away, one thin wall between them. She grinned triumphantly and cracked her eye open and caught sight of two shadowy forms watching them in the corner of the room.

She jolted to no avail in the grasp of his thickly muscled arms, then her gaze focused. No strangers in the room, only the two of them reflected in a framed mirror, Veronica gazing at herself in all her sinful glory.

Veronica watched Veronica, tremors and sighs torn from her by the man that ravaged them both.

She held steady against the window frame and parted her thighs ever wider to Victor’s impatient hand. Impossibly large fingers lightly twisted and pulled Veronica’s pebbled nipple; impossibly large fingers delved into the sodden silkiness of her panties, teasing through her thin trail of tight curls. 

With a patience that agonized them both, Victor caressed the length of her lips with two thick fingertips. They could  _ smell _ her arousal, and she could feel his, pressed tauntingly against her backside like a promise. 

Gently, Victor teased the split of her damp lower lips with a single fingertip. Veronica froze in place, watching their reflection, as Victor’s finger pressed between her lips and caressed her opening before dragging up to circle the hardened nub of her clit.

He breathed hotly against her ear. “Are you ready for me?”

“Oh,  _ darling…” _ she gasped, and taunted. “Can’t you tell?”

Victor stroked her again, joining a second finger with the first, parting her lips wide as they teased her nub before pressing against her opening.

_ Oh, God,  _ she thought, a tremor of fear rippling goosebumps up her spine and scalp. Veronica watched herself in the mirror as Victor stroked two fat fingers into her inch by patient inch, watched her eyes widen and then nearly close, watched her jaw fall open and a deep, throaty moan of release shake her.

It hurt, just a little. She chased that pain running through her pleasure like a bright red thread, stretching to take his fingers until he had buried them inside her, lifting her onto the very tips of her toes so that gravity itself might hold them firm inside her.

Held there, pressed between his relentless hand and his hips, the impossible length of his cock throbbing against her, she watched his arm flex as he drove his fingers into her again. And again. And again. He curled them inside her, a hook to drag calloused fingertips against slick velvety walls while his palm ground against her mound.

Veronica moaned quietly as Victor nibbled on the nape of her neck, then cried out when he gently twisted her nipple. She wet her lips and parted them to say something -- she didn’t know what, the heat building in her was breaking sentences into words, words into sounds -- when he spoke instead.

“Knew I’d have you,” he murmured against her throat, tugging her nipple sharply as a third finger joined the first two inside her quim, stretching her lewdly. “Could fuckin’  _ smell _ you downstairs.”

“Could’ve,” she gasped, joining her hand with his between her thighs and guiding him, grinding the heel of his palm against her clit and driving those fingers into her harder, deeper -- “had me right there, darling -- “

A primal growl rumbled in Victor’s chest as he tore her blouse and bodice wide open, baring her flushed breasts to the cool gaze of moonlight.  _ Someone might see,  _ she thought, and laughed gaily, a bubbling sound filled with the mad edge of rising pleasure.  _ I look fantastic, I bloody well  _ hope _ someone sees. _

He ground his hips against her upturned ass as he fucked her with his fingers, curling them harder inside her as heat built in her belly and shortened her breath, made it ragged.

“You’re going to come for me, Lady Blackhurst,” he whispered, driving his fingers into her, rocking her hips against his in urgent need.

“Yes, please, God, yes, I’m so -- “

“No,” he growled, “you’ll come when  _ I  _ say.”

Veronica’s eyes shot open and she watched them in the mirror. This massive man was half bent over her, kneading her breasts, bicep flexing and forearm twisting with every thrust of his fingers, rocking the two of them together. Unbearable heat built in her, but she could not think, could not act, could not do  _ anything _ without his --

“Now  _ come _ for me,” he said, drawing her nipple between his fingertips and twisting sharply as his fingers drove their relentless rhythm. With a sob, Veronica obeyed, the heat in her cracking and erupting as she shook helplessly in his arms. Victor drove his fingers at that same steady tattoo until Veronica feebly grasped his hand and drew it up to rest low on her stomach, dragging sticky trails through the curls of her mound.

Silence settled around them, silence and the sound of breathing. She watched them in the mirror, and smiled through the haze as he gazed back at her in the reflection.

“Just,” she managed after a moment, “delightful.”

“Mm,” he agreed, tracing slick fingertips between her breasts and up the curve of her neck to her parted lips. Eyes locked in the mirror, Veronica teased her tongue out and drew his fingers into her mouth. She sucked them between teeth and tongue until her lips kissed his knuckles. Cheeks hollowed, she withdrew, moaning quietly at the fragrance of her own cum until they fell from her lips.

“Darling,” she said with a curl of her lips, “I simply must have you.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Iron Gladius" indeed.

Bodice torn, skirts askew, hair wild, Veronica turned and slipped her hands beneath Victor’s sleeveless, form-fitting navy blue shirt. He was a foot taller than her, but when she stepped forward he stepped back, until the backs of his knees hit the edge of the bed and sat heavily on it.

Together they peeled his shirt from him, and Veronica’s breath caught at the sight of his bared chest. He was sculpted with well-defined muscles, yes, but so were so many men in Paragon City. He was so damned  _ thick,  _ by far the most  _ man _ she’d ever dragged in here, and every inch of dark skin rippled with some hint of the explosive strength he’d brought to battle.

“God, look at the state of you,” she said delightedly, biting her lip as she caressed the contours of his hips, his stomach, and glorious pecs near as big as the pillows on the bed. He leaned back on his hands and could only watch Veronica, entranced by her naked want.

“Just how I’m made,” he said, and for that she kissed him. She joined her hands at the buckle of his belt and parted her lips to tease his with the tip of her tongue. With a little growl of want he opened his lips to her, to share the lingering taste of her cunt. With a click, his belt buckle fell open.

_ Truly the finest fashion innovation of this age,  _ she thought, dragging his zipper down, and dipped her hand inside.

When she gripped the base of him, she froze. Victor held his breath and watched her with hooded eyes and a faint look of resignation. Veronica used both hands to heft his manhood free of its confines. It took some doing.

“‘Iron Gladius’ indeed,” she murmured.

Victor’s cock was near as heavy as one. It jutted upright between them, dwarfing Veronica’s hand, which could not quite fit all the way around it. She squeezed gently and he throbbed in response. The skin of his shaft was so dark it was nearly black, and cum beaded at the tip.

Veronica realized two things in rapid succession, things Victor no doubt already knew:

One, he was in near-agony for release.

Two, he was far, far too big for her.

And for the first time in a long time, Veronica didn’t know what to do with the man in her bed. Thankfully, he seemed to.

“Yeah, I know,” he said, wetting his lips and shutting his eyes as she stroked his length lightly. “Happens damn near every time. But.. there’s somethin’ I like… that we’ll both like... if you’re down.”

Intrigued, Veronica leaned in to whisper in his ear, the slick tip of him pressing between her breasts.

“Tell me,” she said.

He did. As he spoke, Veronica’s blood thundered so loudly she almost didn’t catch the last of it.

“Darling,” she whispered at last, throat dry, eyes foggy with delighted disbelief. “I am  _ exceptionally _ ‘down.’ Look in the nightstand while I go make adjustments, and stay ready for me.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Blackhursts are, if nothing else, problem solvers.

When Veronica opened the door to the master bedroom, she found her sister pressing her ear against the drinking glass she held to the wall. They made eye contact, Veronica’s eyebrow raised in mock-affront, Effie’s in simple defiance.

“I _thought_ it had gone quiet too soon. Was he quick to -- ?”

“Hardly,” Veronica said, stepping in and passing the larger dresser to unlock a second, smaller one. “He is simply… proportionate. Perhaps unfortunately so.”

“Oh,” Effie said, setting the glass aside before pausing. “ _Oh.”_

“Mm,” Veronica affirmed, holding two corsets in front of her torn bodice.

“The black one, of course,” Effie said. “What do you plan to do about it? You’ve always been deft with your hands, I suppose...”

Veronica grinned, tossing the black corset on the bed before turning back to the dresser of private things.

“The new amusement, dear.”

There was a beat.

“ _Oh_ ,” Effie said.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to an expansive occult library, a well-maintained armory and a special locked dresser equipped for other nightly concerns, the Blackhursts are never without the right accessory for the job.

Veronica stood patiently before the cheval as Effie made final adjustments, teasing her hair out into wild chestnut waves. The transformation had been brief but complete: in place of a torn bodice and mussed petticoat she wore a velvet black choker with a white marble cameo of the Blackhurst coat of arms, a black hourglass corset that lifted her already substantial bosom, and black silk stockings that terminated with crisp white garters mid-thigh.

Between her flared hips and garters, Effie cinched the final strap tightly in place against her sister’s hip. Veronica turned three-quarters left, then right, examining her sister’s handiwork in the mirror.

“Is it affixed properly?”

“I believe so,” Effie said, standing beside her sister to gaze at her in the reflection.

“Do you mind checking the, mm, alignment? I don’t want things to go askew once we begin.”

Effie looked at Veronica. Veronica stared back expectantly with her blandest and most imperious smile. Effie pinched her trousers and, without shying from Veronica’s flinty gaze, took to one knee, then both, until she was kneeling before her sister on the floor.

Her sister, and the amusement strapped and affixed to her bare mound.

Carefully, Effie tightened the buckle on Veronica’s left hip. Then the right. Her fingertips trembled against Veronica’s bare thighs as she looked up at her sister, suspended in the tension of the moment like a tautly drawn wire.

 _But_ , she reasoned, _who would not be?_

“I am,” Effie began, then cleared her throat, achingly aware of the black lacquered phallus inches from her lips. “I am quite certain you are ready.”

“Good,” Veronica said with a fond caress of Effie’s chin. Effie’s eyes fluttered shut. Her lips threatened to part for her tongue when Veronica stepped away and took to the door. There she stopped and turned, and the silhouette made Effie’s breath catch in her throat.

“We shall revisit this arrangement at a future date, sister,” Veronica said, and was gone, shutting the door gently behind her.

“Yes, we shall,” Effie breathed, finding her steel. “But make no assumptions about who will take the superior position.”

Carefully she sat again, and placed the glass to the wall to listen.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica finds her strut, and engages in a vigorous exchange of ideas with her guest.

Between Effie’s room and Victor’s, Veronica found her strut.

When she opened the door to find him lying naked on the bed, lazily stroking his member, she did not break stride. She stood with hands on her hips at the foot of the bed, gleaming faux cock hanging extended from her pelvis, and let him drink her in.

She was a fantastical vision of femininity, all generous curves and soft skin bound by the gentle slopes of lingerie… and one rigid exception. Her demeanor was cool, but as his massive hands stroked his length and cradled his balls, a flush crept up her chest and threatened to render her mute.

“I’ll have you like this,” she said, finding her control again. “On your back. I want to look you in the eye.”

“As the Lady desires,” he said, lifting his hips to slip a pillow beneath them. His thighs, thick as tree trunks, spread for her. “C’mere.”

Veronica crawled onto the bed with a lascivious grin, breasts threatening to spill from her corset. His leer was not shy, and neither was she; sitting back on folded knees, she caressed his inner thighs and made a nod to the nightstand.

“The jar, dear.” He plucked a small jar of floral-scented lubricant from the nightstand and set it within reach. Victor gripped the headboard with both hands and tensed as Veronica’s hands joined at the base of his member, gliding up to swirl her palm over the tip before stroking down again.

“It’s good you know your role, Victor,” Veronica whispered as she stroked his length again, dipping one hand to gently massage his balls between her fingers. He wanted to twist and thrust and force more from her, but the look in her eye brooked no dissent.

“My… role?” he groaned, toes curling.

“As my plaything, of course,” she said brightly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. She released his testicles, and Victor gasped and shivered when he felt her fingers return, covered in cool lubricant.

“Open up for me, darling.”

The bed groaned as Victor spread his thighs. As she stroked his length, she teased his entrance with two slick fingertips. He shut his eyes and gripped the headboard until his knuckles whitened. Inhaling, Veronica pushed.

“Good boy,” she whispered, eyes alight, her fingers curling deep inside him. She dipped her head and teased the tip of his cock with her tongue, lapping up pearls of pre-cum that pooled there. “Relax, darling.”

Victor did as she asked, and her knuckles rested against his ass. It seemed he  _ had _ done this before.

“Delicious,” she said, and tongued his slit once more before rising. Veronica laid the cool tip of her phallus at Victor’s entrance and took his thick hips in hands, raking her gaze up his body to meet his. She was every inch the dignified woman even now, with a flush of red splashed across her chest and cheeks... but the glimmer in her eyes was savage.

“I’m having you now,” she whispered, and drove her hips forward.

Victor gripped the headboard so hard it rattled. Veronica held his hip and shoulder, pulling him down as she drove forward until she sheathed herself fully in him. Every muscle in his body was taut, carved in stark relief in the dim light of the room, chest rising and falling with sharp breaths. Between them, his cock pulsed with the beat of his heart.

She had never, she thought, felt so powerful in all her life.

“I should tell you now,” she whispered, caressing his cheek with the fondness of a mother. “I’ve no intention to be gentle.”

She began to fuck him. One hand braced on his chest and the other pulling his slab-like thigh high around her waist, she relaxed her hips before flexing them again, driving her length into Victor. The motion did not come naturally to her, at first, but she was eager to learn. Each thrust was an experiment, to see how fluidly she could claim him, to hear how he groaned or sighed, to see whether his cock beaded with cum.

He was tight, and she hurt, a little; but he did not want her to stop and she decided not to care. His cock trembled between them when her hips slapped home, and he opened himself up to her more.  _ I could do this forever, _ she thought, a wolfish grin splitting her lips.  _ Though I suspect he won’t last that long. _

In the rising heat of the bedroom, they found their rhythm. Veronica rolled her hips between his thighs, plunging her phallus into him with feral need. He was strong, she knew; he could take what she had to give. Some core control inside her melted at the urgency of his gasps, at the throb of him, the smell of him, the obscenity of it all. For long, wordless minutes, Veronica simply rutted into Victor, her rising cries of effort matching his own tangle of exquisite pain and pleasure.

His breathing rose, hastened, and he gripped the base of his cock to stroke himself to orgasm.

“ _ NO!” _ she roared but did not cease, did not even slow down. “Only when  _ I  _ say.”

Victor obeyed, grunts and gasps boiling over into moans as he held the base of his cock. She beheld him once more: strained, sweating, moaning, thrashing beneath her, thighs split by the drive of her hips, and felt some deep truth about herself unlock in the darkest recesses of her mind.

Veronica laid fully atop him, trapping his length between them as she thrust, and thrust, and thrust.

“Delicious man,” she whispered in his ear, in between gasps of every filthy epithet she could summon. “Delicious little strumpet of a man.”

He moaned a wordless plea. She sat nearly upright and drew out her thrusts to a slow, teasing agony. 

“Now,” she said. “ _ Come _ for me.”

His fist quickened on his length. Veronica, stomach on fire with the effort, fucked him with thrusts that quaked the bed. “ _ Now,”  _ she commanded, and he obeyed. Clenching and thrashing beneath her, Victor’s cock thickened and erupted, ropes of cum arcing to splash hotly across his chest and stomach.

Veronica sagged over him, panting, as Victor relaxed his grip on the headboard and fell slack on the bed. She was flushed and sweaty and quite frankly exhausted, but she took that moment to truly  _ see  _ him once more, his spent length laid across his pelvis, her hips pressed flush between his thighs.

“I believe,” she said, splaying her hands across his chest, purring at the feel of slick cum spreading on warm skin. “I have your portrait sorted."


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Veronica's sketchbook gains a new addition.

Morning came, and with it the first true sunrise Paragon City had seen in a month. When Effie walked downstairs to the kitchen, she was surprised to find Veronica seated at the table, dressed, and busily at work in her leatherbound sketchbook. Two cups of tea were set and steeping.

“I don’t believe I heard our gentleman caller leave,” Effie said, sweeping her skirts to sit across from her sister.

“Just before dawn,” Veronica said, pencil going still as she looked up at Effie with the faintest smile on her lips. Her smuggest look, and one, Effie had to admit, she found deeply charming. “I trust there’s little else you didn’t hear.”

“Mm,” Effie said, matching Veronica’s smug little smile before she picked up her tea to blow on it. “Congratulations on breaking your dry spell, sister.”

“Your time will come,” Veronica offered, then turned and slid her sketchbook across the table to Effie. “What do you think?”

Effie worried her lip, tracing the contour of Victor’s hip with her fingers. 

“I think,” she said at last, “that you had better share his mobile number with me.”

Veronica only laughed.


End file.
